Heart, guts and other huge anatomical parts

Big heart and other sizeable parts of the anatomy were the characteristics Johnny Sexton’s team-mates Bundee Aki and Dan Leavy described as they paid tribute to their fly-half’s Six Nations last-gasp, match-winning drop goal against France on Saturday.

Ireland were in a hole, trailing 13-12 with less than three minutes remaining after French wing Teddy Thomas had scored a wonderful solo try, the only one of the game, to leave the visitors staring down the barrel of an opening-day defeat for the second year in a row.

Yet after a great team effort to manoeuvre the ball from inside their own 22 to the French 10-metre line after Anthony Belleau had missed a crucial penalty kick for the home side, it was Sexton’s long-range drop goal which saved the day and Leavy was mightily grateful.

The Leinster back row had replaced injured team-mate Josh van der Flier in the 30th minute and had contributed to the remarkable and lung-busting 41 phases engineered to get Sexton in position for the drop-goal attempt from long range in the 83rd minute.

“I don’t think I really had much energy to be emotional at that stage. We really needed to dig deep to come down to the wire like that, and it was 41 phases or 42 phases so there’s not much time to get emotional.

“We had belief. We said under the posts when Teddy scored a serious try, just get the ball back and hold onto it, make our way down the field, try and get a penalty or if we can score, then we score.

“But the ball is greasy and it was quite slow in the rucks and stuff because there was a bit of moisture on it and it was quite difficult to handle.

“We had belief. We had worked seriously hard this week and last week over in Spain in Oliva Nova, and yeah, Johnny obviously has the biggest balls on the planet and he managed to kick it.”

Leavy had not known Sexton had gone down with cramp during those 41 phases but the fly-half’s determination to see the job through was a testament to his character, the back-rower said.

“He’s a serious leader. He’s a competitor. He’s always on to refs, trying to get decisions our way. He’s a competitor and it shows whenever he gets on the field, he always wants to win. He just drives that.

“It just shows the strength of the man and the character of the man to be able to step up after 82-83 minutes.

“Johnny pushes the envelope to get you up the pitch when he knows one mistake could end the game, as a team is it just get that scenario out of your head and be focused, or is it there when you’re hitting rucks and making you as precise as possible?

“We do a lot of work, we’ll always try to be as accurate as we can on both sides when people are hitting rucks and making sure there are no opportunities for them to get a jackal on the ball, or whatever. And, you know, in a final phase like that, there’s no margin for error so you’ve got to be really clued in.

“But we’re the kind of team that tries to play in the moment as much as we can, anything else is irrelevant. It’s about the next ball and the next play, so we had the confidence in ourselves to really dig deep and try to grind out the result, which we did.”

Playing inside centre in his Six Nations debut, Aki had done his fair share of the work also during that epic drive upfield and he also the first player to congratulate Sexton as the drop goal flew over.

“It was a special one. Johnny, I look up to him,” Aki said. “He’s got a massive heart. To have that courage a fair way back to nail that kick, it’s only world-class players step up, put their hands up and nail those big moments. And he sure did.

“It just shows the heart that he has, how much courage he has and how much confidence he has in himself. He obviously stood up there, put his hand up and nailed the kick. I think my first glance at it I just saw it go straight and it looked really good. We just turned around and just followed him.”